We get a lot of inquiries from customers who need to print longer than 99 inches on Epson printers which is no surprise at all. With the dramatic improvements that have taken place in Panorama Photography (GigaPan comes to mind) more and more photographers and print professionals are looking for a way to print 100 + inches on their Epson Wide Format Printers.

As both ImageNest RIP and Template Sherpa provide layout and template solutions we do not have a length limit but the Epson driver does and without a custom print driver it isn’t going to happen.
But fortunately, There is a solution:ColorBurst Overdrive (a product from ColorBurst Systems) does print well beyond the 99 Inch limit of Epson Wide Format printers.

If you need to print long, you need a solution like ColorBurst Overdrive. ColorBurst has posted a free fully functional demo on their website and prices are based on printer width.

Exporting InDesign Files as PDF’s:

Creating PDF’s is generally the best workflow for the ImageNest RIP but Adobe Indesign can export PDF files several different ways depending on an individuals particular requirements. Each method will result in dramatically different results so be extra careful to check all settings in the Adobe InDesign Export PDF dialog to make sure that everything is set correctly. If you have further questions please don’tt hesitate to contact us. We are always happy to help.

Settings for Customers who want to create PDF’s at full color gamut:

The settings to the right are best for users who wish to retain all color possible. This is ideal for Posters and other final output that will not be reproduced on a press (not ideal for pre-press proofing). The Color Conversion dialog should be set to NO COLOR CONVERSION. This will ensure that your embedded profiles are not change and the RGB files remain RGB (to preserve their larger color gamut) and that CMYK files remain CMYK files.

Other InDesign settings that can be selected on the left (General, Compression, etc) can be set to a users own preferences without effecting color. The output setting (detailed right) is the only setting that will effect color.

Settings for Customers who want to Create PDF’s for Pre-Press Proofing:

The settings to the right are best for users who wish to create a PDF for proofing purposes. These settings will automatically convert all elements in a pdf to a destination profile and destination color space. All elements will be rendered to the destination profile and color space selected.

Color Conversion: Should be set to €œConvert to destination€. This will ensure that all elements are put into both the ICC profile selected in the €œDestination€ dialog and the color space of the profile selected in the Destination dialog.

Destination: The destination should be whatever profile most accurately represents the color gamut of the press being proofed for. US Sheetfed Coated V2 and US web coated V2 are popular choices but many modern presses are capable of a larger color gamut.

Other InDesign settings that can be selected on the left (General, Compression, etc) can be set to a users own preferences without effecting color. The output setting (detailed right) is the only PDF export setting that will effect color.

After a long 6 months of re-writing our core processes we are very happy to announce that ImageNest version 3.7 is now released. Version 3.7 will significantly increase speed and responsiveness in the ImageNest layout when using large files.

Currently, testing is showing a more that 600% speed increase for PDF files and large Bitmap images. The speed increase is due to a complete re-write of our Image Processing routine that optimizes both CPU and GPU processing along with a sophisticated Image Caching algorithm. Version 3.7 is a free update to all users and is compatible with OSX 10.6 and OSX 10.7 (Support for OSX 10.8 is currently under development.

Version 3.7 can be downloaded at: http://www.bluecubit.com/downloads.php

We are very happy to announce that our final Beta is finally ready. This final version of 3.5 has been through several versions of testing and internally we have found no errors. Mac OSX 10.6 and 10.7 are supported with version 3.5

Beta 3.5 can be downloaded here and includes a reference of new features and how they work: ImageNest 3.5 beta

Feature in beta 3.5 include:

Option for performing high quality interpolation prior to printing

Black Point Compensation

3 Editable Levels of Print sharpening

Speed Improvements

Improved memory allocation

Improved color management

As this beta has been through many rounds of testing we anticipate that we will have a final release within two weeks. Feedback is always appreciated and you can contact us.

Eric Hatch has posted a very good article reviewing uprezzing technology and has it works in ImageNest Version 3.5 beta. If you are interested in an in depth article on some of our new features it is a great spot to visit:

If your interested in color and color theory you will certainly want to vist:

http://www.color-image.com

This blog is maintained by one of the brightest minds in the color industry and will feature articles on Color Theory, ICC Profiles, and a wide range of topics with in depth information of getting the best results from your color workflow. The blog is written by Parker Plaisted:

About the Author

Parker Plaisted is the author of this site. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics-engineering from Washington and Lee University and a Master of Science degree in Imaging Science from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). While at RIT, Parker studied color science in the Munsell Color Science Laboratory under professors Mark D. Fairchild and Roy S. Berns. His classmates included Ricardo J. Motta, Mark E. Gorzynski, Mitchell R. Rosen, Taek Kim, Jason Peterson, Ranjit Bhaskar, Tom Orino, David Telep, and David Erdtmann. Parker’s primary thesis advisor was Dr. Ed Granger.

Parker has made technical contributions to the development of color imaging systems and to software applications that create and use ICC profiles. He has more than 10 years of experience working on the development and implementation of color imaging systems.

We look forward to contributing to Parker’s blog in the near future with complete analysis of some of the one of a kind technology that is being introduced in ImageNest Version 3.5

Version 3.5 is a giant leap forward for ImageNest. Both print quality and Color Quality are significantly improved. Our new print system processes all files in 32 bit floating point and automatically re-sizes them to final print resolution. This change is largely transparent and happens automatically but the difference in print quality is striking. How are we doing this? Here is how printing is done from other applications”

Photoshop, ImageNest 3.0, Apple Preview, Lightroom, Etc:

Customer has a 300 PPI image open in their application that they wish to print. They click Print and send the file to the print control panel for their Epson Printer

Printer Driver resizes the 300PPI image to 720PPI using nearest neighbor (low quality) or Bi-Liner (low quality) interpolation. This happens in 100% of all print jobs that are printed from Photoshop, Lightroom, etc. Why? An inkjet printer has a native resolution that all images must be set to in order to print. The same is true for canon and hp printer but their native PPI is 600 PPI.

Print Driver applies a microweave process that converts the PPI (pixels per inch) to DPI (Dots Per Inch with options for 720, 1440, or 2880 DPI on an Epson printer- Canon and HP microweave to different sizes). Printers don’t put pixels on paper, they print dots on paper and microweaving is the process of converting pixels to dots. There is no Image quality lost in this part of the process but a higher level of microweaving generally results in a higher quality print but a slower print time.

New ImageNest 3.5 Print Process:

Customer has a 300 PPI image open in ImageNest that they wish to print. They click Print and ImageNest interpolates the image to 720 PPI using a very high quality Vector Based Interpolation.
Print driver recognizes that the image is at printer resolution and does not perform any interpolation.
Print Driver applies a microweave process that converts the PPI (pixels per inch) to DPI (Dots Per Inch with options for 720, 1440, or 2880 DPI in the case of Epson printer, Canon and HP microweave to different sizes).

We have received many inquiries about our support for Apples upcoming release of OSX 10.7 (Lion) and we are very happy to announce that we will support 10.7 prior to it’s public release so any customers who are beta testing Lion will be able to test with ImageNest.

Here are some facts about ImageNest and OSX 10.7

ImageNest is natively programmed in 64 bit (cocoa) so it is capable of taking advantage of all the benefits of a 64 bit OS such as OSX 10.7
ImageNest does not run any of our code under Rosetta. With Rosetta not being available in OSX 10.7 we will have no problems at all. This is a major potential problem for any 32 bit (Carbon based) software packages.
ImageNest will continue to offer free upgrades so all improvements that we make to take advantage of new features found in 10.7 will be completely free to all users.

ImageNest is happy to announce that we will be supporting the Epson 4900 prior to its shipping date. The Epson 4900 will be supported on both OSX 10.5 and 10.6 In addition to support for the Epson 4900 ImageNest is also adding the ability to Interpolate to native printer resolution automatically and apply print sharpening to all images in the ImageNest Photo Layout

The Epson 4900 is a replacement for the Epson 4880 and will include many improvements in speed an Image Gamut:

All current shipping models of Epson Printers have a great feature for saving paper that works perfectly with ImageNest. What makes this feature so great is that it will automatically trim any white area off an Image Layout.

For example. If you create a layout in ImageNest that is 24 inches wide and 100 inches long you should have enough space for most any print job. but what happens when you have a smaller print job that may only be 23 inches long, Do you go make a new custom page that is just 23 inches long?

Nope, there is a great feature that will save you from having to do any of that.